


We Ain't Kids No More

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7421923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows what he has to do, but it doesn't mean he has to be happy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Ain't Kids No More

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 'Send My Love' by Adele. 
> 
> Warnings/Content: Weasleycest, angst, light language, mentioned infidelity.

Charlie is forty-four. He is an adult. He is most definitely no longer a child. The broomstick flew so long ago he can't remember the ride at all.

But something comes with the clarity of watching the clock tip over midnight to 12 December. 

He flicks some ash into the ashtray beneath his hand and then sucks on the hateful little stick again. His mother would still murder him if she knew. He's never been stupid enough to tell her.

There's a lot of things Charlie doesn't tell his mother. Not about the tattoos, though he thinks she surely must know about them by now. Not the drinking. Not even officially that he's considered himself gay since he was sixteen years old. Somehow the right time never happened to tell her. He's sure she knows anyway. She knows everything. Or thinks she does.

He picks up his drink and swigs back the last of it; it strips his throat a little more with its extreme potency.

Charlie is used to being shitfaced. It's something he never grew out of. His brothers have all grown up, one by one, but there he sits, refusing to accept the inevitable.

Except it's midnight, and he's forty-four, and he's an adult and the song on the radio isn't helping.

He thinks, as he always thinks, of Bill, probably tucked up in bed at that moment with his wife. Their children are probably sleeping peacefully in that idyllic little cottage by the sea. He wonders if Bill ever thinks of him at night. If he ever longs for the touch of Charlie's fingers, calloused and burnt, brushing over his skin.

Charlie thinks of Bill's long-fingered, gentle caress over his belly and shudders. He smokes some more and pours another drink.

The thing he does remember from his childhood is Bill. Always there, his best friend. The night when they fell head-first into dangerous territory, when they shared their first kiss.

The memory makes his something in his chest flutter.

He sets down his glass and rubs his hand over it until bone and skin both ache.

He thinks how sad it is that all his firsts were with Bill. All tied to sad memories he no longer feels comfortable remembering, because Bill is older than him, and has three beautiful children, a beautiful wife and a beautiful _life_.

Charlie has a keeper's cabin in the middle of a forest and ten dragons to look after. He has nobody to cuddle up to at night. He doesn't think he's ever wanted anything more.

But it can't be Bill. 

Bill, with his long red hair and the earring. Slender body and masculine scent so strong that Charlie doesn't have to do much to bring it to his senses. He closes his eyes and remembers the last night they had together. The night before the birth of Bill's only son.

Charlie props his chin on his free hand and looks at the mantelpiece of the tiny kitchen in his Keeper's Cottage. It's where he's always kept his photographs. Frames of the littler ones when they were tiny. A copy of a snap from his parents' wedding day – the same one that sits on the mantelpiece back in The Burrow. And the picture of him and Bill, on Bill's wedding day, dressed to the nines in formal robes.

Only Charlie and Bill know that they're both thinking of each other. That their hearts ached with the loss the wedding represented.

Charlie knows he has to stop. He knows he has to move on. Has to find someone who can love him openly. Who he can take home to his mum and dad and not be disowned for. He knows he has to let Bill go to the lover he's married to.

He stubs out his cigarette too viciously. He doesn't care. He knows what he has to do, but it doesn't mean he has to be happy about it. That he won't _hate_ it.

He gulps at his drink and lays his forehead down on the table.

He knows.


End file.
